Going Through a Haystack
by Naiyad
Summary: Axel gets nothing. Axel is the reason my life is going to end tonight. Granted, we’ll probably die together. Death a second time is probably a good form of punishment. Demyx's pov.
1. Chapter 1

Standard disclaimers apply.

Author's Notes:  
Semi AU. I haven't played Chain of Memories, and may get some characterisations wrong. If you notice anything drastic, do let me know. Moreover, this is my first Kingdom Hearts fic. It probably won't be very good. Also, seeing that this is a multi-chaptered fic, I cannot guarantee that I will update very often. I'm just hopeless that way. However, your support and criticisms will be much appreciated.

This story runs parallel with 'Running with Scissors' and 'Running out of Thread' (not posted yet). Reading all three at the same time will probably bore you, so I'd advise you to just pick a character you like best, and read one first. Just a thought, the decision's up to you.

**Going Through a Haystack: Chapter 01**  
by: Ran Shizuka

Why do I let him talk me into these things? Demyx is a bundle of nerves. The smallest sounds makes him jump. Nothing good has ever come out of going along with Axel's plans. He has learned the lesson several times over in the past, so why is he here, with his roommate, in Master Vexen's private laboratory, in the middle of the night?

"I don't think this is such a good idea."

Axel is too busy concentrating on the liquid he was measuring to pay his insecurities much attention. Instead, he waves a free hand to shoo him away without taking his eyes off of the measuring cylinder.

"Sush! I've almost got it. Make yourself useful will ya and stand watch or something."

Demyx shuffles over to the front door and leans his back against the wall so that he can peer through the crack of the door. The light that filters through from the corridor paints a vertical line across his right cheek. A part of him has already resigned to the fact that his life is probably going to end tonight.

His friend must have heard his thoughts.

"C'mon, don't give me that face."

Demyx doesn't move from his position, content in making his unhappiness known. "I'm not even looking at you." He can't hold back the pout.

The redhead lets out an exasperated sigh. "Look, I'm telling ya, it's all gonna be worth it. This thing is gonna change your life man. Seriously!"

"_If_ I survive tonight. We're _so_ gonna get caught." He presses the palm of his hands to his face, trying to hold back the panic attack that is building up again.

'Breathe Demyx,' he tells himself. 'Breathe. In, out, in, out. That's it.' The exercise goes well until he hears firm footsteps from the outside.

He takes a hurried peep through the crack, his worst fears confirmed. Vexen himself is walking towards the laboratory.

"Axel." He can barely keep his voice down. "Axel!" What to do? What to do? Where to run?

"What _is_ it? I'm almost done. Keep your pants on."

Why does he choose now to be dense? His legs are shaking so badly he feels like they will give way any moment now. Demyx runs towards his friend and tugs on a shirtsleeve. "Master Vexen's coming!" Tug, tug. "He's _coming!_"

Finally, jade eyes widen in understanding. "Okay, okay. Gimme a minute."

What?! "Never mind that thing. Axel! He's going to kill us! Come on!" They are too high up to escape through the window. The back door. Yes, the back door.

The blonde runs to the back door and jiggles the doorknob.

It doesn't budge.

Of course it's locked. Why wouldn't it be locked? When has luck ever been on his side?

He feels Axel pull on his arm, and is practically flung behind the cabinet near the front door. There, the two botched culprits crouch in hiding. Demyx may not have a heart to thunder in his chest, but something is certainly making a lot of noise inside him.

"Hey man, we really gotta work on your courage issue," comes a bemused whisper from his left.

'What courage issue? I haven't got any courage to have issues with in the first place.'

The door opens further and the lean figure of Master Vexen steps in. His shadow falls just next to Demyx's shaking feet.

'This is it. This is the end. I want Neoxyvn to have my drum set, and Axydian to have my Discman and music CD collection. Axel gets nothing. Axel is the reason my life is going to end tonight. Granted, we'll probably die together. Death a second time is probably a good form of punishment.'

There is a hand on his back, and Demyx feels himself be shoved, hard, out the door. _This_ is Axel's escape plan?

Well, a stupid plan is better than no plan. Axel is two steps in front of him. He carries a plastic bottle under his arm, filled with whatever he had been making earlier. Demyx follows suit, mildly impressed that the jellies he calls legs could still run.

He doesn't dare look back. He knows Vexen is at his heels. He doesn't need the ice crystals materializing around him to remind him of his pursuer. Axel jumps over the railings in the stairwell to buy time. Demyx runs down the steps three at a time, colliding into the wall at every turn.

Freedom is just around the corner. This is how they snuck inside earlier that night. An open window beckons from the end of the hallway.

Axel makes an impressive jump, clean through the opening. Demyx struggles to scramble through the window after him, but a firm hand catches him by the collar and pulls him back in.

He falls into an unceremonious heap on the floor at the older man's feet.

"What do we have here?" The words are spoken in a cold, quiet voice. Those five words sound like a death sentence to his ears.


	2. Chapter 2

Standard disclaimers apply.

**Going Through a Haystack: Chapter 02**  
by: Ran Shizuka

Demyx had been pulled by the hood of his white jacket back down the same corridors and up the same stairwells he had just careened through, all the way to Vexen's study, which happened to be located two doors past his personal laboratory, all the while trying to walk fast enough so as not to choke to death, and at the same time avoid stepping on the other man's feet from behind.

Vexen moves around the large, mahogany table to sit in the tall, cushioned chair. He doesn't gesture for Demyx to do the same, so he remains standing, shuffling his feet and rubbing his sore neck.

"What were you doing in my private lab?" Vexen leans forward, with his elbows on the polished wood, to rest his chin on interlaced fingers.

"I'm sorry, sir. I was just…uh, experimenting. Honest! I wasn't going to steal anything or break anything or– "

"ID," Vexen interrupts curtly. He doesn't sound particularly angry, just bored. That's a good sign right?

"Uh, 0143. Demyx, sir."

"And your friend?" He pulls out a loose sheet of paper from one of the numerous stacks, piled high on his table, and jots down Demyx's student ID. His name is spelled wrong.

"F-friend sir?"

Vexen raises a delicate eyebrow, his pen still poised over the sheet of paper.

"There was no friend. Just me…."

"Do I look stupid to you?"

A part of him wanted to just turn Axel in. The last thing he needed right now is to make Vexen any angrier. Besides, Axel deserves it. This isn't the first time he's been dragged into one of the red-head's madcap mischief, and it isn't the first time he had to suffer the burn of it.

Still, Demyx may be a coward in many ways, but he always stands up for his friends. So with a heavy heart, he turns to look away, unable to come up with a suitable response.

Half lidded eyes narrow dangerously. Vexen gives the younger boy a few more moments to come to his senses, and when Demyx still refused to offer up a name, he puts his pen down and pushes his chair away from the table.

It was all Demyx could do not to back away when Vexen approached him. Vexen's expression was calm, but you can never tell with the man. His features rarely betray much emotion except the occasional frosty glare, or brief flicker at the corner of his mouth.

Demyx was prepared for the worst.

Although being dragged, by the ear this time, down the corridors was not quite the 'worst' he had expected.

They take a turn halfway down the corridor and enter a part of the building Demyx is not familiar with. Doors on their either side grow further apart. The rooms here are much larger that their classrooms. Here is where the students sometimes had their practical classes, basic combat, practical magic and the like. The classes, especially practical magic, are held fairly rarely though. The teachers insist that they must first master theoretical magic before they can properly test out the spells.

Of course, trivial matters like keeping his bearings were not what as going through the mind of our hapless blonde.

What he was thinking went along the lines of: "Ow, ow, ow, ow!"

The corridor they had gone through was sparingly lit. Every once in a while, a large window would allow the moon to shed its light into the lonely passage, but for the most part, it remained dark and rather foreboding. Round several more turns, and up a flight of stairs or two, they finally stop in front of an unassuming door. Light filtered through the space between the wood and the floor and made the tip of their shoes seem to glow a little in the dark.

Vexen finally loosens his grip on Demyx's ear to rap on the door. Four quick knocks. There was no reply, and Vexen tries again, harder this time.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor was heard, and Demyx marvels that his ears still function the way it's supposed to even after the abuse. He touches it gingerly, and bites on his lower lip at the stinging sensation it brought on. Moments later, the door opens to reveal the stocky figure of Xaldin.

'Don't any of the teachers sleep?'

Xaldin, unlike Vexen, isn't wearing the customary black robe the teachers often wore. Instead, he was in a pair of loose, navy pants and a white T-shirt.

He doesn't look too happy to see them, but then again, Xaldin rarely looks happy anyway, so this is nothing out of the ordinary.

"This student needs disciplinary actions." Vexen gives Demyx's shoulder a (not too gentle) push.

The light from the room behind him cast dark shadows across his face. It makes his strong features even more prominent. "Not making a grade does not warrant punishment Vexen."

"He was messing around in my lab." There's a hint of irritation in his voice.

Xaldin hums and takes a look at Demyx from the corner of his eyes. He's still facing Vexen.

Satisfied that he has made his point, Vexen turns and walks away, leaving the younger blonde with Xaldin.

Only now does Xaldin turn to face Demyx.

"What were you doing in his laboratory?" though he doesn't sound particularly interested in hearing the answer. He leans against the doorframe, one hand on either side and he rests his forehead on the back of a palm.

"Nothing sir. I…I…don't know. Demyx finished lamely. He doesn't feel compelled to lie. Even if he wanted to, he hasn't even constructed one yet. At the moment he's too tired to bother with it. Tired, hurt and upset. All he wants to do is bury himself between his covers and not see the light of day again for a very, very long time.

Xaldin regards him in silence for a while, before pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm in the middle of something now. We will talk about your punishment tomorrow. Meet me after your classes."

With that, the older man turns around and shuts the door in his face.

The initial wave of relief he felt for finally being released from the teachers was soon replaced by slight panic when he realized that he was lost.

He tries wandering around for a while, hoping that his feet will remember something his brain couldn't. That did not work out too well. He did manage to find one of the large windows though and throws it open. He leans out to see if perhaps there's a tree he could climb down from or something. There isn't, but Demyx notices that he isn't too high up. Only the first floor, and there's a bunch of soft looking bushes right underneath him. The fall would hurt, but it wouldn't kill him.

"Better than wandering these halls forever and starving to death," he mutters to himself.

Demyx climbs onto the windowsill, and slowly turns around. Firmly locking his fingers around the edge of the windowsill, he lowers himself down. With the toes of his shoes, he tries feeling around for a loose brick or a crack in the wall, anything that could act as a foothold. Unfortunately, the side of the building was smooth. 'Maybe this isn't such a good idea after all,' he thinks to himself when his arms begin to tire. Too late for regrets though. His grip on the white wood began to slip despite his desperate attempts to hook them back in. The next moment, he's flying through the air, arms flailing like some retarded bird.

Note to self: Bushes aren't as soft as they look. From down here he can see that the first floor window is pretty high up after all. That was…a very stupid thing to do. At least, the only witness to his disastrous escape attempt is the full moon, who's peering at him through the leaves of the bushes he'd landed in. That is, until something very messy, very red and grinning from ear to ear, rudely blocked her view.

"Hey buddy, flying really isn't your area of expertise."

Demyx groans and slaps a hand to his forehead.

The trip back to the dorm was rather blurry. He remembers Axel helping him walk, and he remembers venting out his frustrations. He remembers Axel saying Axel things, and finally, he remembers collapsing into his soft, warm bed. After that, everything went blank as he drifted off to sleep.


End file.
